Wien | Fotoeins Fotografie

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Vienna Steinhof Church: city- & Wagner-landmark

Above/featured: East side of the church, in afternoon light. Photo on 28 May 2023, X70 with wide-field WCL-X70 lens attachment, image corrected for geometric distortion.

Building: Steinhof church, also St. Leopold Church, 1907 // Kirche am Steinhof, Kirche zum heiligen Leopold.
Address: Baumgartner Höhe 1, in Penzing, the city’s 14th district.

Up on the city’s Baumgartner Heights is an example of Europe’s first modernist church at Steinhof. Dedicated to St. Leopold, the structure is one of the city’s finest examples of turn-of-the-century architecture, and one of the world’s most important churches in the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau architectural style. The church was designed and built by architect Otto Wagner, inaugurated in 1907 for patients and staff within the surrounding hospital complex the Lower Austria state, sanatorium, and nursing home for the mentally ill (Niederösterreichische Landes-, Heil-, und Pflegeanstalt für Geistes- und Nervenkranke) which included over 30 buildings and room for over 2000 beds. The bright, airy, and spacious modern design was met at that time with skepticism and criticism by local church officials. Of utmost importance on Wagner’s mind were the hospital patients: his church design was about gentle solitude, not fire and damnation.

The church was a collaborative effort with other Viennese artists, including mosaics and stained glass by Koloman Moser, angel sculptures by Othmar Schimkowitz, and exterior tower sculptures by Richard Luksch. The church roof is topped with a dome covered in gold-plated copper plates, whose bright yellow appearance in daylight merits the nickname “Limoniberg” (lemon hill) that’s visible in different parts of the city. The Steinhof church is an example of a “Gesamtkunstwerk“, where every detail and fixture contributed to a “total and functional work of art”; an architectural masterpiece of the period; and one of Otto Wagner’s most important creations.

I included this building as part of my description of Otto Wagner’s architectural legacy in Vienna and of the recent centenary celebration in Vienna of the city’s 19th- to 20th-century architectural transition from historicism to modernism.

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25 for 25: fotoeins fotos in 2025

Above/featured: “Göttin” (goddess), by AlfAlfA, also known as Nicolás Sánchez, for One Wall 2017. Photo, 17 Jun 2025 (P15).

In continuation of high spirits and enthusiastic support of leading choices, I’m very grateful to significant time spent:

in the Bay Area, to visit mum’s family in Sacramento and long-time friends in the South Bay;
in Vienna for the 4th consecutive summer; and
in Berlin for the 1st time in 4 years, as set up for a repeat in the new year.

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25T83 Vienna: the 30th and final day

E82, V30.

It’s overcast today which is slightly disappointing not to get a final bout of good light. But the illumination while gray will be fairly even. I’m sticking to the 1st district today and see what I can find in a meander and stroll. No surprise a month goes quickly, as well as over 90% of my planned time in Europe having elapsed.

*Schottenkirche (Scots Church & Foundation). There’s a Romanesque chapel with …*

*… one of the city’s oldest images of the Virgin Mary statue, c. 1250 CE.*

*Facing southeast from Freyung, towards the Austriabrunnen , Kunstforum, Park Hyatt, Stephansdom, Peterskirche.*

Heidenschuss: c.1850 statue referring to a legend of a local baker who secretly dug tunnels below ground to expose the Ottoman Empire’s advanced lines of attack during their 1st Siege of Vienna in 1529.

*Above the door at Tiefer Graben 8-10: where Beethoven lived from 1815 to 1817 and worked on pieces Opus 98, 101, 102, 106, 137.*

In 2000, the City of Vienna officially unveiled its memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust with a sculpture by British artist Rachel Whiteread. Situated at Judenplatz, the memorial takes on the form of an “inverted library” whose books are placed spine facing inwards.

*The books are placed with their spines inwards. There’s a model concept in Wien Museum Karlsplatz.*

*Stephansplatz, Stephansdom, and the usual crowds in late-afternoon.*

Weeks in advance of my arrival, I purchased online a 31-day ticket for 51€ from the Wiener Linien (WL) transport authority. With a registered account, the WL mobile app included my digital ticket shown above. At a conversion of 1€=$1.6CAD, the ticket comes out to $2.70 daily.

Except for the screenshot, I made all other images with an iPhone15 on 29 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

25T82 Vienna: colour splash in the Sünnhof

E81, V29.

The sun showed up at the right time, as I entered the 150-metre long passageway through the Sünnhof building in Vienna’s 3rd district. Truth is, at the right time of day, the illumination of the umbrellas suspended over the passageway is sure to light up everyone’s face, regardless of age. I’m confident Mary Poppins would have felt at home.

There’s no admission charge, but people are more than welcome to sit outside with a drink from any of the cafes or restaurants lining the passage.

The Sünnhof is just one example of a Vienna architectural staple: “Durchhaus”, a building through which a path is constructed to allow passage from one side of the building to the other. There are many “Durchhaus” examples in the city, especially in the 1st district.

*North end of Sünnhof passage, at Landstraßer Hauptstraße 28.*

*150-metres later at the south end of Sünnhof passage, at Ungargasse 13.*

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 28 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

25T81 Vienna: former railway station pavilions at Karlsplatz

E80, V28.

In 2018, I returned to Vienna for the first time in 16 years. One of the first places I saw and visited was the Wien Museum Otto Wagner Pavilion at Karlsplatz. That started a journey of discovery: about the architect, about his building designs which remain a part of the urban landscape, and about the city’s first railway network which is now part of the modern public transport framework.

It’s summer 2025: my 5th visit to Vienna in 7 years. What’s “old and familiar” from repetition has become “fresh and new”. That means I said “hello” again to the former railway station pavilions at Karlsplatz, completed in 1898-1899 and shining examples of Vienna Art Nouveau (Wiener Jugendstil).

While the east pavilion has found new life as a bar, the west pavilion is home to the Wien Museum Otto Wagner Pavilion at Karlsplatz, which has a permanent exhibition about Otto Wagner and his direct involvement with the design and construction of the city’s first urban railway.

*West pavilion, west side: at left is the entrance underground to U-Bahn lines U1 (red), U2 (purple), and U4 (green). Karlsplatz station is a junction for these 3 U-Bahn lines.*

*West pavilion, east side: main entrance to the Wien Museum Otto Wagner Pavilion at Karlsplatz. At the surface, the museum is isolated from the U-Bahn junction station below ground.*

Detail of the eastern face. For a civic construction of steel and concrete, there are plenty of floral and leafy motifs. For as much of the current U-Bahn signage solid in Helvetica or Sans-Serif font, there’s still life in the “old” lettering, bold and proud in Serif font.

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 27 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.